Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(23)

I was not one of those girls who cared about appearances, but maybe Grace was right about the skinny jeans. I clutched my shawl and floated down the hallway to my homeroom.





14


Late fall home football games meant huddling in ridiculously cold weather in clumps of woodwinds and brass on the metal bleachers, trying to keep at least slightly warm between fight songs. I was wrapped in enough woolen goodness to make a sheep jealous, from my hand-knit tam to the matching scarf and fingerless gloves, all in Pine Central’s signature red and orange, but my nail beds were still a purplish-blue color. I rubbed at my fingers and went back to knitting.

Before starting my next row, I glanced up and frowned at the figures on the field. I still knew nothing about football, but if the players were closer to the goal post and one person wasn’t getting jumped on, chances were good we’d have to play.

“Touchdown!” One of the few of us who actually understood the game yelled, and we all scrambled for our instruments.

“Crud.” I dropped my knitting in my lap and grabbed my piccolo, bringing it up to my lips and hitting the opening, ear-piercing notes of the Victory March. After a frenzied minute of music, it was back to status quo and I picked up all of the dropped stitches in my shawl. Maneuvering a piccolo and knitting took skill. I had to be more careful next time.

My fingers fumbled on the needles. “It’s so cold I can barely purl,” I complained.

“So, stop knitting.” Dev turned around and nudged my boot with the end of his clarinet. “Or is it physically impossible for you not to?”

I made a face and kicked so he had to move fast to save his clarinet.

“Physically impossible,” Em said. Her fingers were wrapped around little pocket heat packs, her flute perched precariously on her knees. “You have to admit, at least it’s better than reading. Osoba docked her a bunch of participation points after last week’s game because she missed all the cues.”

“Wait, you actually lost points? I didn’t think it was possible to lose points in band.”

I ignored him and squinted my eyes in a sideways look at Em. “The person who once made us all miss our cue has no right to make fun of me for missing a touchdown thingy once in three years of this.” I waved at the field full of guys in tight pants and helmets basically smashing into each other.

“Like Susan B. Anthony said, `Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards can never bring about reform.’ I was trying to bring about reform to this whole stupid making nonmarchers a part of the pep band. You were just reading.”

“I don’t think Susan B. Anthony meant trying to get out of playing at football games by standing up and pretending to stab yourself with your flute while quoting Shakespeare.”

A wide smile spread across Em’s face. “I’ll have you know that was my best Macbeth soliloquy. It was worth all the tuba cleaning and the B that marking period.”

“It was pretty awesome,” Dev said over his shoulder. He glanced at the field and, apparently satisfied that nothing was going to happen any time soon, turned to face us again. “Speaking of theatre, we need to start figuring out costumes for zombie Phantom.”

“You know, Phoebe’s sister is this amazing costume designer. Maybe she could do it.” Em tugged my sleeve and nodded, like she was agreeing with her own idea. “You should talk Trixie into helping us out.”

“Right. She’ll definitely drive down from New York and take time from her class projects to make costumes for a high school musical. Don’t you guys have, I don’t know, a whole theatre club full of people to do that? Isn’t that the wardrobe master’s job?”

Em waved her hand dismissively. “He’s useless. What we need are really amazing costumes to go with our really amazing idea, especially when I get cast as Christine. You know that role needs something that stands out on stage.”

“Oh, so it’s ‘when’ you get Christine?” Dev asked in an amused tone. “We haven’t even auditioned yet.”

“C’mon, we all know I’ll be her and you’ll be Phantom. Lexie is dying to get Christine but she can’t sing or act her way out of a B in Theatre so she’ll probably just stick to stage manager to boss everyone around again. And there aren’t any guys half as good as you.”

“And you’re not a diva, no,” I shot at her, stretching the ‘no’ out for emphasis.

“If I’m a diva, then I need a majorly diva-worthy costume.”

I shrugged. “I’ll try, but I really doubt Trixie will be interested in this project.”

“For once it would be nice if you stopped hoarding your sister.” Em blew into her cupped hands, then rubbed and flexed her fingers. She tossed a dark look at Osoba before turning back to us with a grimace. “I think my fingers are going to fall off.”

She was right—my metal needles were practically freezing to my fingertips. I gave up on knitting and flipped the convertible mitten tops over my fingers so my fingerless gloves were now full mittens. “I think I have an extra pair of gloves in there,” I said with a nod at my knitting bag.

“Perfect.” She dragged my bag onto her lap and dug past my yarn in a way that made me cringe before pulling out a pair of grey alpaca fingerless gloves. Instead of dropping my bag by my feet right away, though, her brows knit together and she dug a little deeper. “Phoebe Martins, did you lie to Ms. Osoba? I thought you said you didn’t bring a book. She’ll probably fail you if she finds out.”